Israel Amir,
99, the first commander of the Israeli air force, died in a Tel Aviv hospital Friday, the military said. Mr. Amir was born Israel Zblodovsky in Russia in 1903, and in 1923 he immigrated to what was then British-ruled Palestine. He soon joined the Hagana underground, the forerunner of the Israeli army.
In 1942, after holding a number of field commands, Mr. Amir was made head of the Hagana's information department, which evolved into the Mossad and Shin Bet intelligence agencies.
In February 1948, shortly before Israel declared its independence and was attacked by Arab armies, Mr. Amir was sent to Europe to recruit and train thousands of young Jewish survivors of the Holocaust for combat upon their arrival in the new state. He then moved to the defense ministry, where he held various administrative posts until retiring in 1969.
Karl Eric Knutsson,
70, a former deputy director of the U.N. Children's Fund, died Thursday of cancer in Stockholm, Sweden. An expert on Ethiopia, he was named head of the East Africa office of UNICEF in 1980 and deputy director of the organization three years later, also becoming an assistant secretary-general of the United Nations.
Mr. Knutsson was born in Ale, 435 miles north of Stockholm. He headed the department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University in the 1970s. He retired from the United Nations in the late 1990s but continued working for several foundations.
Sema Wilkes,
95, renowned for hearty Southern home cooking at her restaurant, Mrs. Wilkes' Dining Room, died Thursday in Savannah, Ga., after a short illness.
Mrs. Wilkes started her career in 1943, when she agreed to help out in the kitchen of a boardinghouse. The part-time job led to a thriving business after she and her husband bought and restored the home in 1965 as part of a Savannah Historic Foundation project. Her restaurant's reputation, built mostly on word-of-mouth, made Mrs. Wilkes' a fixture in downtown Savannah and inspired the 2001 publication, Mrs. Wilkes' Boardinghouse Cookbook.
Lucille Ryman Carroll,
96, one of a handful of women to reach an executive position in the Hollywood studio system during the 1940s, died Oct. 23 in Glendale, Calif. Ms. Carroll, who led MGM's talent department from 1941 to 1954, helped sign Lana Turner, June Allyson and Janet Leigh.
"She was strong-willed and indomitable, but always a lady," said Harrison Price, a longtime friend and financial manager. "That's how she made it to Louis B. Mayer's studio."
Ms. Carroll worked directly with Mr. Mayer, auditioning actors, shopping for scripts and supervising the studio's younger talents.
Lionel Poilane,
57, whose bread was featured in gourmet restaurants in Europe and the United States and became a multimillion-dollar industry, died Thursday in a helicopter crash. Rescuers found the wreckage Friday off the French coast. His wife, Irene, also was on board.
Mr. Poilane succeeded his father, Pierre, as head of the bread shop opened under the family name in Paris in 1932. The younger Poilane gradually converted the family business into a bread-making empire.
Jakov Sirotkovic,
80, a prominent economist and high-ranking member of the Communist party in the former Yugoslavia, died Friday in Zagreb, Croatia.
Mr. Sirotkovic served as deputy head of the Yugoslav federation's Cabinet in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He later headed the Cabinet in Croatia -- one of six republics that made up Yugoslavia until that country began to break up in 1991.
In 1978, Mr. Sirotkovic left politics to teach economics at the universities of Zagreb and Belgrade. Until his retirement in 1991, he was also a member of Yugoslavia's -- and later Croatia's -- Academy of Science and Arts.